A head-mounted display system tracks user head motion relative to a rendered scene and updates the rendered scene in real time based on the head motion. Such head-mounted display systems can provide a visually immersive virtual-reality experience. However, most users are extremely sensitive to total latency, measured from head motion to corresponding display update. Total latencies as low as 10 milliseconds commonly produce unpleasant user experiences, and can even provoke nausea and general discomfort. Furthermore, conventional techniques for rendering and displaying images within a head-mounted display system may caused perceived blurring of fine detail on what should be seen as fine, stationary image detail when a user moves their head. Such blurring may occur when total latencies exceed innate vestibulo-ocular reflex response times.
Conventional rendering systems generate whole frames and display the frames at fixed refresh rates ranging from 60 Hz (16.6 milliseconds) to 120 Hz (8.3 milliseconds), leaving no latency budget or very little latency budget for associated motion sensing and image rendering. Consequently, conventional rendering systems may cause perceived blurring and commonly provoke nausea or other unpleasant experiences in users. Thus, there is a need for addressing these issues and/or other issues associated with the prior art.